WI: United States helps Ho Chi Minh

Yes, Ho went Commie to secure Soviet support, since US decided to back France. US should just have dictated freedom for Asian colonies occupied by Japan in the peace deals after WW2. The Europeans would be angry, but it would have been better in the long run.

If I remember right, France actually threatened to defect to the Soviet bloc over the question of support for colonial rule. A disaster such as that would probably not be worth it.
 
Actually, that would be an interesting TL to see the aftermath of France breaking with the Western Allies over indo-china and getting no Marshall plan funds and Vietnam going pro-US. Could we see a third (albeit minor) faction in europe in the form of Spain and France?

Unrealistic IMO - even Warsaw Pact countries were offered Marshall Plan, they simply opted out because the USSR ordered them to do so. Politically it would be quite odd for the US to have former enemy nations getting the Marshall Plan while a former ally is singled out from it, don't you think?

Also, it's definitely not in the interest of the US to have France turn into "a shithole", not with a ruined Germany, and a super-powerful USSR next door. Why do you think the Allies set up a French occupation zone in Germany? To massage bruised egos? The British saw it more clearly than the US at the time, but if there was some watch to be made on the Rhine, strategic and financial sense alone made it a necessity to include France in it.

Sooner or later its industrial and military potential would be rebuilt, and then it would either contribute to the Allied cause or not. In 1945, the French Communist Party represented 25% of the voters, it was one of the most powerful and commanded a lot of influence since it had played a major role in the Resistance. Have the Franco-US relations go your way, and it's more or less bye bye pro-US France, hello pro-Soviet one.
 
Yes, Ho went Commie to secure Soviet support, since US decided to back France. US should just have dictated freedom for Asian colonies occupied by Japan in the peace deals after WW2. The Europeans would be angry, but it would have been better in the long run.

Much as I want to support the idea of the US supporting Ho in 1945, the above bit about Ho being a latecomer to the Communist fold is just not true.

He was in France when WWI ended, and controversy raged through Socialist circles about whether or not to adopt Leninism as their new guide; the socialists who did so became the founders of the Third International aka "Communists."

Ho Chi Minh was one of those charter member Communists--literally; his signature appears on the founding document of the French Communist Party.

It is quite true that the decisive factor for him was the various factions' stand on colonialism; he was impressed with the Bolshevik's forthright anti-colonialism versus the weaseling, ambivalence, or downright imperialism of the mainstream socialists. But he was a Communist as early as anyone else outside of Russia and he stayed one to his dying day.

This works against the idea that Truman might have nevertheless supported him but doesn't entirely rule it out; in the depths of the McCarthy era the US did play off Tito in Yugoslavia against Stalin after all.

I'm quite sure that had Ho been able to get at least moral support from the USA, and had that "moral support" gone so far as to refrain from helping France in its re-colonization efforts in Indochina, then he would have handily secured control of Vietnam itself, probably Laos as well, and France would have had no foothold. IIRC France had zero logistical capacity to return to Vietnam in the years after WWII and OTL the regime sent its forces there in American ships. That regime by the way was not Gaullist--DeGaulle would not become French President until the 1960s and the collapse of the 4th Republic--nope, these colonialists were under a Socialist government, one that included the French Communist Party in its coalition--and that party, perhaps on its own hook, perhaps under orders from Stalin, I forget, was also committed to France regaining all its colonies.

Under those circumstances, I expect that relations between Ho and Stalin would be rather cool; turning to frosty if Vietnam and the USA got close. In that case I guess the Vietnamese regime would have been far less radical--still quite left-wing by American standards, perhaps going so far as the Arbenz government in Guatemala or the Mossadeqh ministry in Iran as to nationalize land and key industries, but probably not daring to have the sort of land reform that did happen in the North OTL. Of course the Latin American and Middle Eastern reformers became the bugbears of the early Eisenhower (and late Truman for that matter) years and were overthrown in US-directed coups; if Ho were not, it would be the difference between "sons-of-bitches" and "our son-of-a-bitch."

Say what you will against the Viet Minh, I can't believe they were in any way worse than people like the Somozas of Nicaragua (of whom the infamous "our-son-of-a-bitch" phrase was said, attributed to various American leaders) or the Duvaliers of Haiti. Or just about any tinpot dictator in the Western sphere of influence. And I'd argue, they were clearly better in their commitment to the betterment of the lives of ordinary citizens.

The dark side of American alliance would be that they might have to slack off on that very commitment. But I'd think Ho, provided he gave his pro-American credentials in the form of critical independence of both Stalin and Mao in the world diplomatic sphere, would have been too valuable an ally to lose and would instead be the showcase of how American policy really really wasn't reactionary at all, and it was Stalin who was the enemy of left-wing progressivism.
 
If I remember right, France actually threatened to defect to the Soviet bloc over the question of support for colonial rule.

Let 'em. It would have shortened the Cold War by at least 10 years. "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

All those Marshall Plan dollars can go to the Low Countries, the UK, and Germany instead.

I agree that Ho had a communist background, but he was a Nationalist first, last, and always. As it was (as noted above) he embraced the US Constitution. If the US had said "you get independence guaranteed by us if you hold free elections and adopt a US-like constitutional government" he'd have done it in a heartbeat. His faction would have won an honest election easily in the late '40s. Vietnam (or "Indochina"?) would have had some communist leanings, making it a target for McCarthy later on, but the US IOTL has more than a few socialist/communist elements itself.
 
Let 'em. It would have shortened the Cold War by at least 10 years. "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Then it's a wonder the US moans and groans every time France does not blindly join its little adventures. "With friends like these", you'd think America would be relieved, wouldn't you? ;)

All those Marshall Plan dollars can go to the Low Countries, the UK, and Germany instead.

And boy, would they need it. Remember that the Marshall Plan was offered to Russia-dominated countries, though...

I agree that Ho had a communist background, but he was a Nationalist first, last, and always.

No he really wasn't. The best you could say is that he was a nationalist in the same way Stalin was a nationalist. But deep down, that was Communism.

As it was (as noted above) he embraced the US Constitution. If the US had said "you get independence guaranteed by us if you hold free elections and adopt a US-like constitutional government" he'd have done it in a heartbeat

That's quite an idealized view of Uncle Ho IMO - we are talking about the same man who liquidated all the non-Communist resistance groups during the Indochina war, and who submitted the Vietnamese people to "political reeducation". Definitely not some rice-paddy George Washington.
 
Then it's a wonder the US moans and groans every time France does not blindly join its little adventures. "With friends like these", you'd think America would be relieved, wouldn't you? ;)

Some of us are quite happy without them. Perhaps because we're familiar with the history between our two nations.

No he really wasn't. The best you could say is that he was a nationalist in the same way Stalin was a nationalist. But deep down, that was Communism.

That's quite an idealized view of Uncle Ho IMO - we are talking about the same man who liquidated all the non-Communist resistance groups during the Indochina war, and who submitted the Vietnamese people to "political reeducation". Definitely not some rice-paddy George Washington.

And George Washington was known to many native americans as "The Town Burner." I think George and Ho would have got along just fine. They were both willing to do bad things they felt were necessary.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on Ho's nature, since we might as well be talking about two different people.
 
Well this hurts America's relations with France.


So?

OK, the price of some wines and cheeses go up, and haute couture might be a tad more difficult to come by, but otherwise, I'm having trouble seeing a down side, especially if the US maintains its good relations with the UK and builds up (at the time) the West Germans as a continental bulwark against hard-line communism.
 
Yes, Ho went Commie to secure Soviet support, since US decided to back France. US should just have dictated freedom for Asian colonies occupied by Japan in the peace deals after WW2. The Europeans would be angry, but it would have been better in the long run.

yourworstnightmare

I don't think even FDR would have been that destructive. Unless he was a lot more generous with Marshall aid or some other way. Western Europe was destitute after the war and needed trade and commerce to survive. If the US was that hostile you would at best see western Europe greatly weakened and needing more US economic and military support and at worse a lot more communist success. Either way everybody loses.

There was arguments for changes in a number of cases and I think that Vietnam was a good example. Possibly if America had supported Ho here things would have gone a lot better. A basically democratic Vietnam would have avoided a generation of savage warfare followed by a brutal dictatorship which further crippled the country.

Steve
 
So?

OK, the price of some wines and cheeses go up, and haute couture might be a tad more difficult to come by, but otherwise, I'm having trouble seeing a down side, especially if the US maintains its good relations with the UK and builds up (at the time) the West Germans as a continental bulwark against hard-line communism.


now I don't think that it's quite like that, but the overall point is the same.
Even if France goes commie, simple physical limitations render france nothing more than a ceremonial member of the warsaw pact, and it still becomes a shithole. In the event of a conventional WWIII it's effectively a non-factor.

Honestly, the US made the UK give up its colonial empire in exchange for support, why not France too?
 
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